The residents will connect virtually through high-tech “Portals.” The portals are repurposed shipping containers equipped with immersive audio and video technology. Full-body screens will enable the groups to converse in real-time as if they are in the same room. The portals were created by Shared Studios; there are currently 27 of them around the world.

WHAT: Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) will facilitate a virtual meeting between local resident leaders in Milwaukee and Newark to discuss strategies for improving public safety through community engagement.

LISC already has robust resident-led community safety initiatives in place in Newark and Milwaukee. At this virtual meeting, the local groups that have taken part in these programs will benefit from talking about their past experiences, including successes and achievements, lessons learned, and best practices.

Topics to be discussed include:

· Techniques for successful engagement with local law enforcement

· Strategies for increasing community involvement in resident-led safety initiatives

· Experiences with Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and the strengths and limitations of this approach

· Tactics for organizing residents in opposition to a “problem business” (for example, a liquor store or problematic corner store)

Portals is a global public arts initiative. Each Portal is a gold shipping container equipped with immersive audio and video technology inside. When you enter one, you come face-to-face with someone in a distant Portal and can converse live, full-body, and making eye contact, as if in the same room. Shared Studios coordinates each golden portal, utilizing designated Portal Curators. Curators promote dialogue among participants during scheduled city time slots. For more information about the Portals initiatives in Milwaukee and Newark, please contact Lewis Lee (Portal Curator for Milwaukee, Wisconsin) or Divad Sanders- (Portal Curator for Newark, New Jersey). For general information about the Portals initiative, please visit our website at www.sharedstudios.com

Cory Bookeris still upset with the on-going war on drugs, one which he feels is a losing battle. In a post on the forum Reddit.com, the Newark, N.J. mayor slammed the federal government for failing to regulate drug use in America. “The so called War on Drugs has not succeeded in making significant reductions in drug use, drug arrests or violence,” he wrote. “We are pouring huge amounts of our public resources into this current effort that are bleeding our public treasury and unnecessarily undermining human potential.

“I see the BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars being poured into the criminal justice system here in New Jersey and it represents big overgrown government at its worst. We should be investing dollars in programs and strategies that work not just to lower crime but work to empower lives.”

In keeping in line with his previous comments about New Jersey’s drug policy unfairly targeting Black men, Booker outlined the pivotal mistakes that the state continues to make. “My police in Newark are involved in an almost ridiculous game of arresting the same people over and over again and when you talk to these men they have little belief that there is help or hope for them to break out of this cycle. And it is a dangerous world for people caught up in the drug trade for it is so associated with violence.” Booker also pinpointed what the city of Newark has done to put a dent in disappointing statistics, which found that over 80 percent of those murdered in the city had been arrested an average of 10 times prior to being killed.

The Democratic mayor is known to be outspoken about several issues, and recently fended off criticism for blastingPresident Obama’s attack on Mitt Romney, over his tenure with Bain Capital.